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A View of the Political Storm After Katrina

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - It was Thursday, Sept. 1, three days after Hurricane Katrina had ripped across the Gulf Coast. As New Orleans descended into horror, the top aides to Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana were certain the White House was trying to blame their boss, and they were becoming increasingly furious.

"Bush's numbers are low, and they are getting pummeled by the media for their inept response to Katrina and are actively working to make us the scapegoats," Bob Mann, Ms. Blanco's communications director, wrote in an e-mail message that afternoon, outlining plans by Washington Democrats to help turn the blame back onto President Bush.

With so much criticism being directed toward the governor, the time had come, her aides told her, to rework her performance. She had to figure out a way not only to lead the state through the most costly natural disaster in United States history, but also to emerge on top somehow in the nasty public relations war.

Drop the emotion, the anger and all those detail-oriented briefings, Ms. Blanco's aides told her. Get out to the disaster zone to visit emergency shelters, and repeat again and again: help is on the way.

"She must temper her anger and frustration," Johnny Anderson, Ms. Blanco's assistant chief of staff, wrote a day after it became widely known that large crowds were suffering at the New Orleans convention center. "We have work too hard to lose the public relations battle."

These candid exchanges are just a few of the glimpses inside Louisiana's highest leadership that emerged late Friday in an extraordinary release of about 100,000 pages of state documents detailing the response to Hurricane Katrina by Ms. Blanco and her staff. The state compiled the documents -- including e-mail messages, hand-written notes, correspondence with the White House, and thousands of offers of assistance and desperate pleas for help -- at the request of two Congressional committees looking into the state's preparedness and response.

"As we move forward, I believe the public deserves a full accounting of the response at all levels of government to the largest natural disaster in U.S. history," Ms. Blanco said in a statement about the release of the documents.

She said the documents demonstrated "hard-working, sleep-deprived public servants operating under enormous pressure and rapidly changing circumstances." They also show that as Hurricane Katrina approached and inundated New Orleans, Ms. Blanco's top aides realized how quickly it was becoming both a human and a political nightmare.

"This is absolutely the worst-case situation we have long feared," Andy Kopplin, the governor's chief of staff, wrote in an e-mail message to the Blanco administration's top aides the day before the storm hit New Orleans. "Pray for Louisiana citizens as this storm nears."

The correspondence released on Friday apparently received almost no editing, other than the blacking out of certain names and telephone numbers for people not associated with the state government. It includes handwritten notes, audio recordings of conference calls and even a few doodles on legal pads.

Most of the material was scanned into a computer and placed on a state Web site, but access was restricted to members of the news media.

The documents and correspondence put in full light the rivalry between the White House and the governor, a Democrat, along with the rising anger in Louisiana as requests for federal assistance went unanswered.

"We need to keep working to get our national surrogates to explain the facts -- that the federal response was anemic and had been shortchanged by budget cuts and avoiding responsibilities like protecting Louisiana levees and wetlands," Mr. Kopplin wrote in one e-mail message a week after the storm hit.

"The governor needs to stay on message, and that is getting people out of New Orleans, provide stability for them and rebuild," Mr. Anderson wrote on Sept. 1. "The governor must look like the leader at all times."

Dana M. Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said Mr. Bush never tried to single out Louisiana for blame. But she added that all government agencies bore some fault.

"President Bush has been very clear that all levels of government could have done a better job," Ms. Perino said, "and we are focused on completing our lessons learned and making sure we understand what went wrong and that it never happens again."

The documents also demonstrate the enormous sense of frustration that overcame Ms. Blanco's staff members as they fielded thousands of desperate calls, few of which they were able to act on effectively.

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"Whoever is in charge needs to get control of the situation regarding the thousands of people (including elderly, babies, infirmed, etc.) up on I-10 in New Orleans," according to one e-mail message a Blanco aide received from his cousin on Aug. 31, two days after the storm hit. "They need food and water to start with. They seem to be in need of specific direction from the 'powers that be,' at the very least."

The response of another Blanco aide to this plea was similarly exasperated. "I am getting these calls too, and I have buses and water but can't get word on where and how to send," wrote Kim Hunter Reed, director of policy and planning.

Offers of help came in from around the world, including from former President Bill Clinton, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro in Cuba. ("We cannot let this get out," Mr. Mann, the communications director, wrote about Mr. Castro's offer.)

The sense of growing chaos is evident in the documents, as state officials found themselves unable to handle the onslaught of calls for help and offers of aid, resorting largely to recording them and focusing on the most life-threatening pleas.

There was, for example, the report of 14 elderly people without food or water at the St. Pius X Church in New Orleans. About 300 others stranded at a gym at St. Augustine High School. The news from the mayor of Slidell, near New Orleans, that he was desperate.

"They are unable to make contact with anyone," one e-mail exchange among the governor's aides said, referring to residents of Slidell. "They are under water, major damage and they need someone from the state and FEMA to help them."

And there were many calls from New Orleans residents trapped in attics or on rooftops, after floodwaters rose around their homes.

"We have got to get there," Ms. Reed wrote about St. Bernard, the flooded parish east of New Orleans. "My hubby just came in and said they are getting calls that half the people on the courthouse roof may have died. They have been calling for two days for help, and I personally have taken these calls."

The struggle with Washington and questions of who was in charge -- the state or federal government -- emerge frequently in the correspondence. It is also clear that Democrats in Washington recognized that the federal response to the storm provided an opportunity to win some political points.

Aides to Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, called Mr. Mann to discuss strategy, a conversation that indirectly included Mike McCurry, the former press secretary to President Clinton, according to one e-mail message.

"By the weekend, the Bush administration will have a full blown PR disaster/scandal on their hands because of the late response to needs in New Orleans," Mr. Mann wrote on Sept. 1, the Thursday after the storm, attributing that observation to Mr. McCurry. The same day, Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans gave an emotional radio interview in which he criticized Mr. Bush for having merely flown over the city in Air Force One.

In the documents, Ms. Blanco and her advisers, as well as some outside allies, defended her decision to reject a request by the Bush administration to take control of the National Guard.

"If Bush and FEMA couldn't deliver meals after 5 days how could LA expect them to take over our Natl Guard and do better job????" John B. Breaux, a former Democratic senator from Louisiana who is now a Washington lawyer, wrote in an e-mail message to Mr. Mann.

In the mountain of documents, though, there are also stories of important victories. One involved a woman who had become separated from her newborn, which set off a desperate search at area hospitals. The search ultimately brought the family back together.

"That is the best news I've heard in several days," one state official wrote to Ms. Reed. "These small miracles make the days worth it! God bless!"

Clifford J. Levy contributed reporting from New York for this article, Adam Nossiter from New Orleans, and Gary Rivlin from Baton Rouge, La.

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A version of this article appears in print on December 4, 2005, on Page 1001039 of the National edition with the headline: A View of the Political Storm After Katrina. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe